steamboat wrecks on the mississippi river

The broken wood caught fire and turned the remaining superstructure into a raging inferno. Golden Eagle's pilot house was salvaged. Dead trees fell into the river and got stuck on the bottom. Sultana had tubular boilers filled with 24 horizontal five-inch flues. Although the mechanic wanted to cut out and replace a ruptured seam, Mason knew such a job would take a few days and cost him his precious load of prisoners. Considered one of them was the biggest vessel ever to sail via the world. The forward part of the upper deck collapsed onto the middle deck, killing and trapping many in the wreckage. Library of Congress Near midnight, Sultana left Memphis, leaving behind about 200 men. The current on the Missouri was fast, and the channelthe deepest part of the rivershifted from place to place. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2007. FS: Your handling of how the owners and crews of these vessels seemed to have not factored in the reality that dirty river water was not suitable for being used to create steam, and thus propulsion. The Capt. MALTA BEND, Mo. But, no, the ice cream cone wasn't invented there. It happened near Memphis, Tennessee, almost in the very heart of the United States, and yet very few people have ever heard about it. As the steamboat made her way north following the twists and turns of the river, she listed severely from side to side. When railroads started carrying freight across the country, the days of the steamboats were over. The violent explosion flung some deck passengers into the water and blew a gaping 2530 foot hole in the steamer. Nashville: Land Yacht Press, 2000. Leyhe died in 1956 in St. Louis at 83. A USS Abeona Andy Gibson (steamboat) USS Antelope (1861) USS Arizona (1858) B USC&GS Baton Rouge (1875) USS Black Hawk (1848) C USS Cincinnati (1861) City-class ironclad CSS Colonel Lovell Cost $8 for poster plus $3.50 postage (U.S.). FS: What was the role played by the last Sultana in the Civil War, and how significant was that role? Steamboats traveled into Iowa border waters even before Iowa was legally open for settlement. Hunter, Louis C. Steamboats on the Western Rivers: An Economic and Technological History. The preliminary crest of 19.61 . "The Arabia sank. Steamboats and flatboats brought thousands of early settlers to the new land of Iowa. Writing about the scene after the explosion of the Louisiana (which blew up in the docks at New Orleans on Nov. 15, 1849), Lloyd wrote: The woodcut illustrations below, which ran small in the book, reveal a repetitive motif when looked at in a larger format: bodies thrown in the air, depicted in flight at the moment of explosion. "The boat had a legal carrying capacity of 376 passengers," he says, "and on its up-river trip it had over 2,500 aboard," in part because the government had agreed to pay $5 for each enlisted man and $10 for each officer who made the trip. Contains photos of War Eagle and steamer Reindeer. I do not feel that it lets would-be historians off the hook as long as they go the extra mile and gather the basic facts, etc., through diligent leg work. (Post-Dispatch). BNSF Railway says two of three locomotives and "an unknown number of cars carrying freights of all kinds" derailed onto the banks of the Mississippi River around 12:15 p.m. Crews are now working . Freight and cargo were much more profitablealthough the movement of animals could be a backbreaking, smelly proposition! The last of the southern survivors, and last overall survivor, was Private Charles M. Eldridge of the 3rd Tennessee Cavalry Regiment, who died at his home at age 96 on September 8, 1941, more than 76 years after the disaster. The most terrible steamboat disaster in history was probably the loss of the Sultana in 1865. Paskoff, Paul F. Troubled Waters: Steamboat Disasters, River Improvements, and American Public Policy, 18211860. Cape Girardeau:Later renamed the River Queen, the vessel sank in 1968. Charcoal Hammered No. Steamboat companies often made huge profits by carrying tons of cargo to rapidly growing communities. By eliminating the manpower required to row or paddle, often against powerful currents, steamboats fueled an exponential growth in trade and development. I copied everything I could find, even though I may never use the material. Its clientele were among societys elite in the Lower Mississippi Valley. Eventually the Sultana turned so that the wind was pushing the flames toward the bow, where 25 soldiers remained. Whole groups went down together. The disaster was overshadowed in the press by events surrounding the end of the Civil War, including the killing of President Abraham Lincoln's assassin John Wilkes Booth just the day before. Uninjured crewmen and passengers dragged the injured up onto the sandbar. FS: Tell us why the Sultana Disaster Museum is located in Marion, Arkansas. There were 10 passengers on board. GES: I think the reporting of the Sultana disaster in April and May 1865 was pretty accurate. Lead was a very important export from the Dubuque area. But it was the last trace of St. Louis' own Eagle Packet Co., which Leyhe's father and uncle founded shortly before the Civil War, when the downtown levee was crowded with steamboats. He was a passenger aboard the Golden Eagle, the company's last steamboat, when it sank near Tower Island in the Mississippi River on May 18, 1947. The crew threw more wood on the fire. Louis.". You have permission to edit this article. GRAND TOWER, ILL. It was the first trip of the season for the Golden Eagle, an antique steamboat with twin stacks, gingerbread woodwork and a splashing sternwheel. [22], In 1903, another person reported that Sultana had been sabotaged by a Tennessee farmer who lived along the river and cut wood for passing steamboats. To the left are the smokestacks of the Union Electric Co. plant at Cahokia. Paul recorded 41 steamboat arrivals in 1844, and 95 in 1849. A sunken casino boat has been uncovered in the Mississippi as severe drought pushes water levels in the Memphis section of the river to record lows. An interview with author Gene Eric Salecker. Last chance! An estimated 1,800 people died in the explosion and ensuing fire more than died in the sinking of the Titanic. The number of people killed instantly or who drowned or died as a result of their injuries was variously estimated from seventy to two hundred; the actual number was likely closer to the smaller figure. Daniel Jackson / May 29, 2021 No one was ever held accountable for the tragedy. Badger State (1844) steam paddle. Instead, Mason and his chief engineer, Nathan Wintringer, convinced the mechanic to make temporary repairs, hammering back the bulged boiler plate and riveting a patch of lesser thickness over the seam. The name stuck. "The paddle wheel fell off of one side, caused the boat to turn sideways; the other paddle wheel fell off.". An estimated 1,800 people died in the explosion and ensuing fire more than died in the sinking of the Titanic. [4]:72 Sultana subsequently arrived at Memphis, Tennessee, around 7:00 PM, and the crew began unloading 120 tons (109 tonnes) of sugar from the hold. From 1817 to 1871, about 5,600 people died on Mississippi River wrecks of all sorts, including burst boilers, collisions and fires. The train . [4]:146147,168176, Passengers who survived the initial explosion had to risk their lives in the icy spring runoff of the Mississippi or burn with the boat. More and more government documents are coming online every day, so it is now quick and easy to make a search for needed information. Being so closely packed within the 48-inch (120cm) diameter boilers tended to cause the muddy sediment to form hot pockets and were extremely difficult to clean. [4]:197202 Captain George Williams, who had placed the men on board, was a regular Army officer, and the military refused to go after one of their own. Steamboats should not have been racing each other, but it happened all the time, and the public loved it! Many of the paroled prisoners had been weakened by their incarceration and associated illnesses but had managed to gain some strength while waiting at the parole camp to be officially released. Look for details such as clothing, technologies or buildings in old photographs to learn more about the past. Most river travel was between the years of 1846 and 1866. The boat was loaded with passengers, mostly from Mississippi and Louisiana, headed to New Orleans to celebrate Mardi Gras. And it was very cold. Catchers once in a lifetime lunge saves Cardinals, The world watches (and makes donations) as St. Louis bald eagle raises eaglet from a rock, Governor threatens to keep Missouri lawmakers in session over transgender rules, Barat Academy in Chesterfield to close after years of financial troubles, Four young people die in Old Monroe head-on crash, Court records online include private information for thousands of Missouri residents, Archdiocese releases third draft of proposed changes to St. Louis parishes. In 1859, the Blackhawk made 29 round trips between Cedar Rapids and Waterloo on the Cedar River. Miller, of Vicksburg, who changed the name to Alice Miller and ran the boat on the Yazoo and Sunflower rivers. On the decks the passengers cheered as the boat headed up the river. While wealthy patrons might buy drinks all night at the bar, the bar was usually privately owned, with just a share of the profits going to the steamboat captain and/or owner. GES: Goods and materials were by far the most important and more profitable cargo to carry. Mississippi River. In the early 1900s, the Mississippi River shifted about two miles to the east, leaving the wreck under about 15 feet of Arkansas soil. Language links are at the top of the page across from the title. In the early hours of April 27th, 1865, mere days after the end of the Civil War, the Sultana burst into flames along the Mississippi River. In the early 1900s, the Mississippi River shifted about two miles to the east, leaving the wreck under about 15 feet of Arkansas soil. The steamboat sank shortly after it struck submerged rocks at 2:20 a.m. All 91 passengers and crew members reached the island by gangplank, and were rescued later that day by a towboat. The ship, which archaeologists. GES: I began to dispel the myths and untruths surrounding the Sultana shortly after the Naval Institute Press published my first book in 1996. The St. Louis Daily Missouri Democrat, April 29, 1865, states that the "steamer Sultana left New Orleans on Friday evening the 21st, with about seventy cabin passengers, and about eighty five employees on the boat. FS: It seems to this reader that one of the main reasons for such a series of disasters for vessels named Sultana is that the owners of the steamers and the people entrusted with actually navigating the ships [boats] were ignoring the fact that overcrowding may have been the principal reason for the long list of tragedies. The sediment tended to settle on the bottom of the boilers or clog between the flues and leave hotspots. Crew members roused passengers and swung a gangplank onto land. Recollections of a Rebel ReeferVol. from 1993-2005. After a few Union gunboats filled up their bunkers but refused to pay, the farmer supposedly hollowed out a log, filled it with gunpowder, and then left the lethal log on his woodpile. The Nick Wall, named for a noteworthy Missouri River riverboat captain, was a 338-ton sternwheel paddleboat built in 1869 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. hide caption. While the Titanic caused more deaths, the great ocean liner was a British vessel and carried people from several different countries. Throughout the war, Captain Hatch had shown incompetence as a quartermaster and competence as a thief, bilking the government out of thousands of dollars. Some survivors were plucked from the tops of semi-submerged trees along the Arkansas shore. An engraving of the Sultana explosion, published in Harpers Weekly, May 20, 1865. Tucson: Fireship Press, 2009. Steamboats played a major role in the 19th-century development of the Mississippi River and its tributaries, allowing practical large-scale transport of passengers and freight both up- and down-river. Steamboats on the Mississippi River The first steamboat on the Mississippi River along Iowa's border was the 109-ton Virginia, on its way to Fort Snelling (now Saint Paul, Minnesota) in May 1823. MADISON, Wis. (AP) A freight train derailed along the Mississippi River in southwestern Wisconsin Thursday, possibly injuring one crew member and sending two cars into the water, officials said. However, the explosion of her boilers just above Memphis on 27 April 1865 put a terrible end to that endeavor. Most of its 91 passengers and crew were asleep. Irregular river depth, sandbars and snags made steamboat travel on the Missouri slow and dangerous. The massive steam explosion came from the top rear of the boilers. It's estimated between 300 and 400 boats have sunk along the Missouri River. A year later, when the U.S. government established the Memphis National Cemetery[4]:206 on the northeast side of the city, the bodies were moved there. [13] The dead soldiers were interred at the Fort Pickering cemetery, located on the south shore of Memphis. The Hero and the Pavillion traveled the Des Moines River to Fort Des Moines in 1837. The steamboat needed a lot of steam power to pull away from the shore. A BNSF Railway freight train traveling along the banks of the Mississippi River derailed near Ferryville, Wis., shortly after noon Thursday, the company said. Slate is published by The Slate It didn't run for several years during World War II because wartime supply restrictions blocked needed upgrades to the boilers. They can search material held in small, local historical societies. . The story of the Sultana isn't well-known even among people who live along the Mississippi. Immediately, Captain Mason grabbed an armload of Cairo newspapers and headed south to spread the news, knowing that telegraphic communication with the southern states had been almost totally cut off because of the recently-ended American Civil War. "I understand that the Fogelmans were able to put together some logs to make a raft and go out and take people off the boat as it drifted back this way," Fogelman says. Savannah Davis, 23, died from blunt . This effect of careening could have been minimized by maintaining high water levels in the boilers. "In order to save time, they would set the people off in treetops, and go back to the boat to take more off.". Sultana was a commercial side-wheel steamboat which exploded and sank on the Mississippi River on April 27, 1865, killing 1,169 people in what remains the worst maritime disaster in United States history. During the gold rush to Montana in the 1860s, steamboats traveled far up the Missouri to early mining towns. Between 1823 and 1848, 365 boats made 7,645 trips. St. Louis' biggest party ran for seven months and was such a success it even made money. The ill-fated Sultana in Helena, Ark., just before it exploded on April 27, 1865, with about 2,500 people aboard. By the post-World War II era, screw-propellered, diesel-powered, flat-nosed towboats dotted the Tennessee, Cumberland, and Mississippi River Systems that once had hosted the Steamboat Age. They wanted the railroad companies to pay for damages to the Effie Afton and its cargo. Publisher James T. Lloyds 1856 book Lloyds Steamboat Directory, and Disasters on the Western Waters, is illustrated by 32 woodcuts of explosions, fires, and foundering ships, chronicling a decades-long history of steamboat mayhem. [15][full citation needed], The official cause of the Sultana disaster was determined to be the mismanagement of water levels in the boilers, exacerbated by the fact that the vessel was severely overloaded and top-heavy. Although brought up on courts-martial charges, Hatch managed to get letters of recommendation from no less reputable personages than President Lincoln and General Ulysses S. Grant. Newspaper accounts suggest John Fogelman and his sons spotted the burning Sultana as the remains of the paddle-wheeler drifted downriver. These trips moved almost 5 million tons of lead down stream! Get up-to-the-minute news sent straight to your device. The report blamed quartermaster Capt. From 1817 to 1871, about 5,600 people died on Mississippi River wrecks of all sorts, including burst boilers, collisions and fires. The Missouri History Museum had it on display from 1962 to 1996, and preserves it in storage. As stated in the 1903 newspaper article, the log was mistakenly taken by Sultana. It just hurts my heart. (Post-Dispatch), The Golden Eagle moored on the St. Louis riverfront in May 1946. GES: I am a bit ambivalent about that. A sister boat to the famous Natchez, the Princess had undergone a thorough retrofitting the previous summer and was said to be one of the fastest and most luxurious craft on the Mississippi River. Most were Union soldiers, newly released from Confederate prison camps. Regaining control, Smith wheeled toward the island and shoved the bow against the bank as the boat listed to port. 2. You can see the wreck in low water just north of the Eads Bridge. Late in April of 1865, the Mississippi stood at flood stage. Lavish meals were served four times a day in a great central hall, and surviving menus list such gourmet delicacies as broiled pompano and stuffed crabs. Eventually, the group settled on meeting in the Toledo, Ohio area. Poster 17" x 22". ", Discovery Gives New Ending To A Death At The Civil War's Close. Hersey and many others died instantly in a blast of scalding steam. No one seemed to question the danger of a steamboat race until there was an accident or the boilers exploded. 1 was no longer used to manufacture boilers after 1879. Nathan Smith of Normandy, Mo., the pilot of the Golden Eagle when it sank on May 18, 1947, as he prepared to testify two days later at a Coast Guard hearing on the accident in downtown St. Louis. The vessel was heading from St . The steamboat has been submerged in the water of the Missouri river ever since. Why should potential readers care? Gretna, LA: Pelican Publishing, 1992. All rights reserved. Non-subscribers can read five free Naval History articles per month. Experience showed that the rivers were briefly superior to rails as lines of communication. We turn the clock back to April of 1993 and present excerpts of the original reviews from Joe Pollack. Probably the most interesting of the wrecks are Vessel No. DAVENPORT, Iowa (AP) People living along the Mississippi River watched warily Sunday as water levels rose in southeast Iowa and northwest Illinois, awaiting spring crests as floodwaters began . Many bodies were never recovered. The Nick Wall was a sternwheel river packet that struck a snag on the Mississippi River near Grand Lake (Chicot County) on December 18, 1870. [4]:24 On April 26, Sultana stopped at Helena, Arkansas, where photographer Thomas W. Bankes took a picture of the grossly overcrowded vessel. Newspaper accounts indicate that the residents of Memphis had sympathy for the victims despite the ongoing Union occupation. The Tricky Missouri River and the Steamboat Bertrand, The First Bridge Over the Mississippi and the Effie Afton, Majestic Riverboat Reigned on the Mississippi, Simulated travel guide describing travel conditions in Iowa from 1830 to 1879, Personal accounts from a steamboat captain describing life on the Mississippi transporting lumber, Article describes the history of steamboats in Iowa City in the 1800s, Transcribed official records, newspaper clippings, historical accounts and diary entries about life on the Mississippi River, Transcribed official records, newspaper clippings, historical accounts and diary entries about life on the Missouri River, Audio story about the last riverboat gambling cruise of the Mississippi Belle II in 2007, Ginalie Swaim Ed., Steaming Up the River,. "Somebody had came by and notified us. It went upward at a 45-degree angle, tearing through the crowded decks above and completely destroying the pilothouse, instantly killing Captain Mason. [10] In 1880, the United States Congress, in conjunction with the War Department, reported the loss of life as 1,259. SS Sultana:The steamboat was bound for St. Louis in April 1865 when the boilers failed right above Memphis, 13 days after President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated. As the crew made sure the cargo was packed tightly, the captain blew the whistle. Leyhe's father and uncle established the Eagle Packet Co., and Leyhe began working on the Mississippi River when he was 18. Steamboats collided or caught on fire. WASHINGTON -- If the U.S. Senate has its way, a 90-year-old steamboat will soon be able to return to the Mississippi River. William H. "Buck" Leyhe of St. Louis at the wheel of the Golden Eagle steamboat in April 1939. The boilers exploded off Cairo, killing at least 1443 men, a loss of life never exceeded on the rivers, and rarely at sea. On the Mississippi river, it was four to five years." "There were about 289 steamboats that sank or possibly more on the Missouri River in the mid-19th century," Rose said. Send to: Patrick Rash. The sternwheel paddleboat that would later be named the Eclipse was built in 1901 at St. Joseph, Missouri, for Captain A. Stewart for service on the Missouri River, and was christened the City of St. Joseph . 1820 1830 April 21, 1838 - Oronoko Most of the passengers were asleep at the time Killed almost everyone either instantly or later from wounds it caused 109 people died 1840 Was traveling to St. Louis when it hit a snag and had several planks torn from the bottom of the boat 2 likes, 0 comments - BHYHA (@bhyhapodcast) on Instagram: "On this day in 1865.The steamboat Sultana explodes on the Mississippi River near Memphis, killi." BHYHA on Instagram: "On this day in 1865.The steamboat Sultana explodes on the Mississippi River near Memphis, killing 1,700 passengers including many discharged Union soldiers. Yet, shortly after my 1996 book came out, a cabal of people sprang up touting the sabotage theory once again. The fires still going against the empty boiler created hot spots. Even amid the horrendous chaos, rescue efforts began immediately. There was no manifest to record the names of passengers aboard the Princess at the time of the disaster. Unlike many of the nautical discoveries in. As shown in my book, when steam navigation of American waterways first began, there were very little, if any, laws for safety. He is currently a freelance writer living in Annapolis. On November 19, 1840, The Burlington Hawkeye newspaper reported upwards of 100 flatboats had passed Burlington going downstream loaded with produce. The letters reside in the National Archives in Washington, D.C. After the disaster, Reuben Benton Hatch refused three separate subpoenas to appear before Captain Speed's trial and give testimony. [32], In 1982, a local archaeological expedition, led by Memphis attorney Jerry O. Potter, uncovered what was believed to be the wreckage of Sultana. tragically sunk during the civil war the sultana accident took as many lives as the titanic but has garnered far . It was easier to copy everything and not use some of it than to forget to copy something and need it later on. "The river is at flood stage," he says as we watch a barge struggle to move up river, "very similar to what it was on April 27, 1865." Human errorfailure to maintain safe boiler pressurewas determined to be the cause of the tragedy, and a pall was cast over the 1859 Mardi Gras celebrations. Mrs. Lind's birthday cake was lost, but fellow evacuees serenaded her as morning sun warmed their island refuge. [18] Louden, a former Confederate agent and saboteur who operated in and around St. Louis, had been responsible for the burning of the steamboat Ruth. Via History.com The steamboat Sultana explodes on the Mississippi River near Memphis, killing 1,700 passengers including many discharged Union soldiers. The jagged limbs could rip open the bottom of a steamboat. Everyone escaped to the muddy, isolated safety of Grand Tower Island. GES: Sultana (No. Concussion swept away the infrastructure, and the upper cabins, state rooms, and hurricane deck collapsed inward. For two years, she ran a regular route between St. Louis and New Orleans and was frequently commissioned to carry troops during the American Civil War. A Hancock County native died Sunday evening from injuries she sustained in a boat crash on the Jourdan River, Coroner Jeff Hair confirmed to the Sun Herald. After some time, the weakened twin smokestacks fell; the starboard smokestack fell backward into the blasted hole, and the port smokestack fell forward onto the crowded forward section of the upper deck, hitting the ship's bell as it fell. The few steamboats still gliding along the rivers today are usually carrying tourists on short trips. Wolf River. On April 27, 1865, the steamboat Sultana exploded and sank while traveling up the Mississippi River, killing an estimated 1,800 people. GES: The Sultana Disaster Museum is located in Marion because that is the closest city to the remains of the vessel. [5] About ten hours south of Vicksburg, one of Sultana's four boilers sprang a leak. Since the US government was paying steamboat captains a dividend to carry the prisoners back north, Captain Hatch and the captain of the Sultana worked out a deal whereby Hatch would guarantee a large load of ex-prisoners for the Sultana in exchange for a kickback of the government funds from Captain Mason. Many Sultana survivors ended up on the Arkansas side of the river, which was under Confederate control during the war. William "Buck" Lehye, who sold the Golden Eagle one year before, and Mrs. Frank Lind, a lifelong fancier of steamboat travel. HEROINE. Fred Schultz has been in the publishing business since 1980 and was editor-in-chief ofNaval History from 1993-2005. After the fall of Vicksburg and Port Hudson, Louisiana, in July 1863 and the opening of the Mississippi, the Sultana was used to bring cotton from parts of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Arkansas that were now under Union control up north so that it could be sent to Eastern manufacturers that had been starving for the raw material. Johnson points out that steamboat explosions, caused by faulty boilers, were the nineteenth centurys first confrontation with industrialized mayhem, and Lloyds prose seemed almost to revel in these horrors. The ill-fated Sultana in Helena, Ark., just before it exploded on April 27, 1865, with about 2,500 people aboard. When the boat tipped the other way, water rushing back into the empty boiler would hit the hot spots and flash instantly to steam, creating a sudden surge in pressure. Sometimes these snags stuck out of the water. Hundreds of steamboats were wrecked on the Missouri. A Look Back The day the Golden Eagle steamboat sank in 1947. The Wreck of the Sultana. James Cass Mason, King's German Legion "Blues in the Water" tells a stylized version of the, This page was last edited on 29 April 2023, at 19:15. Or does it let would-be historians off the hook from paying their own dues for embarking on the composition of a piece of nonfiction? Bad storms hit the river in the summer. The Sultana Tragedy: Americas Greatest Maritime Disaster. The steam packet boat is one of the most enduring and iconic images from the glory days of the Steamboat Era. In a seeming paradox of frontier boosterism, Lloyds book sold this terrible recent history of the Mississippi as a romantic feature of the area. In his book River of Dark Dreams, historian Walter Johnson writes that the table of contents of Lloyds bestseller was sort of a nightmare poem of alphabetized Americana: a catalog of 97 major and hundreds of minor boat disasters. In the end, no one was ever held accountable for what remains the deadliest maritime disaster in United States history. Like us onFacebook, follow us on Twitter@slatevault, and find us onTumblr. Because Union forces had captured Memphis in 1862 and turned it into a supply and recuperation city, numerous local hospitals treated the roughly 760 survivors with the latest medical equipment and trained personnel. A freight train carrying hazardous materials derailed in southwestern Wisconsin on Thursday, injuring four employees and sending two containers into the Mississippi River. At some places, the river overflowed the banks and spread out three miles wide. Potter says he went to the library to learn more and wondered, "Why haven't I ever heard of this?" The Sultana story is one of greed and corruption, as well as pathos and sadness. FS: Which cargo would you say was more important and most profitablethe goods and materials or the obviously wealthy patrons who were there just for a glamorous boat ride? What is the allure to your treatment of the Sultana stories? Yet few know the story of the Sultana's demise, or the ensuing rescue effort that included Confederate soldiers saving Union soldiers they might have shot just weeks earlier. Barrett was a veteran of the MexicanAmerican War and had been captured at the Battle of Franklin. Most of Sultana's officers, including Captain Mason, were among those who perished.[8]. Thousands of recently released Union prisoners of war who had been held in the Confederate prison camps at Cahaba and Andersonville had been brought to a small parole camp outside of Vicksburg to await release to the northern states. [17], In 1888, a St. Louis resident named William Streetor claimed that his former business partner, Robert Louden, made a confession of having sabotaged Sultana by the use of a coal torpedo while they were drinking in a saloon. Most were Union soldiers, newly released from Confederate prison camps. 2023 A crew member fished liquor bottles from the half-flooded bar.

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steamboat wrecks on the mississippi river

steamboat wrecks on the mississippi river